Читать книгу An Affair of State - Pat Frank - Страница 33

He was at her apartment in an hour, exactly. She took his black homburg, smiled as she smoothed the new felt, and dropped it on a bookcase. Then she turned and raised her eyes to his, directly, as if to ask an important question, but all she said was, "Drink?"

"Please."

"Rye, right?"

"Right." She seemed different. It wasn't her dress alone. She wore a white blouse with a gold pin at her shoulder, and a black ballet skirt that seemed to possess rhythm of its own, and that eddied and swirled with her smallest movement. As she moved to the teak bar he noticed that her hair was different. It was loose and smooth like dark velvet brushing her shoulders.

Then he noticed that the room too was different. A room changes with the character of its owner, so slowly and subtly that it is always noticed first by the stranger, not by the one who lives there. Exactly how it had changed was difficult to say. Some pieces had been added, some subtracted. He believed the rattan occasional chair was new, but he could not be sure. The room seemed more colorful, yet it was bare of pictures. Even the photograph of the Marine Corps colonel was gone from the end table.

He sensed that this night would be different from the last time, and that there would be no need to persuade, flatter, cajole, or arouse her. He walked to her side at the bar. He took the just-made drinks from her hands and set them down on the dark wood. He put his arms around her, and he could feel her hands, wet and cold from the ice, at the back of his neck. She strained herself close, and he marveled that she could fit so perfectly and tightly against him. He held her like that until he had to catch his breath, and then he kissed her eyes and her mouth and her ears and the base of her throat and her breasts under the loose, silken blouse.

"You're ruining me," she said finally. "There isn't any hurry, Jeff."

"Yes there is," he said. "I'll be on an airplane in eleven hours."

"That's time enough."

"It's no time at all."

"At least we can have our drinks. I dressed very carefully for you, darling, and I'd like to keep my clothes on for another five minutes."

"Okay," he agreed. "Five minutes."

But it really wasn't that long.

Some time later--it must have been much later for the traffic noises were infrequent outside on the avenue--he awoke and started to rise. Her arm was across his shoulders, and the arm pressed him back. He lay still for a moment, reveling in the delicious relaxation, and her nearness, and his pride of mastery and possession. Then he said, "I'm hungry. I want a cigarette."

"Hush," she said. "In a while."

"What time is it?"

"About one."

"Six hours more. I don't want to go."

"Less than six. We'll have to leave here at five if you're going to make that plane."

"I'm hungry," he insisted. "I was planning to take you to Hall's again tonight."

"I made sandwiches," she said. "Wrapped them in wax paper so they'd be fresh."

"How did you know we weren't going to eat out?"

She put her head on his chest and laughed. "Do you want whiskey," she asked, "or milk?"

"Both."

Then for a time it was Susan who slept while he remained awake. He propped his head on one hand, and smoked, and looked down on her, breathing slowly and quietly, her skin pale ivory in the reflected light of stars and street lamps.

At four he woke her with his lips, and she responded to him, her eyes still closed.

"One for the road?" she whispered.

"One for the road."